The Battles Of Gaming - Part 3

Gran Turismo vs Forza Motorsport

Gran Turismo was the first Racing Simulation to hit our consoles as far back as the Playstation. It was something that had not really been done before with realistic looking cars and more importantly handling models. It had a staggering amount of cars all with different feels and became a massive hit. GT was pretty much the only game in this sub genre for a while (Others had tried but always came out on the arcade style) GT was onto its third reincarnation by the time its true competitor entered the market. Forza Motorsport came on the Xbox and was for all intents and purposes GT for the Xbox. Very similar in look and feel with an equally wide range of cars it was pretty much a clone. In fact I think it was called the GT clone. However after a few years it became evident that this was no mere clone and that the team at Turn10 seriously wanted the crown. They were putting out new games nearly every year and they were not just reskins but improvements. GT on the other hand stalled a bit between GT4 and GT5 allowing Forza to release several games while it only put out one and also Forza branded out into open world driving with Forza Horizon putting the same cars but on dirt tracks, hill climbs and speed runs through crowded open roads. Forza is coming back again as a launch title on the Xbox One while at present GT is going to hit PS4 but we are not sure when. This battle is a little open as the games are on opposing platforms but most fans will state that theirs is the best. Quality is close but Forza probably edging ahead as they releasing a bit more often. However Sony will not let their franchise go down without a fight and I expect something big soon.

FIFA vs PES (Pro Evolution Soccer)

FIFA is the longest running Football game. It has been going since 1993 and pretty much been a yearly purchase for me. As it was pretty much the only football simulation game back then it had the monopoly of the market and also of the licence. It was one of the only football games allowed to use proper players names and likenesses. However in 1997 it got a rival. Pro Evolution Soccer (WInning Eleven in certain countries) landed and even though it was not allowed to use the correct player names (Roberto Corlos!) it quickly stole FIFA's crown. FIFA I feel had taken things a bit easy. There had been no competition and so they were caught on the back foot and quickly Pro Evo was seemly the game of choice for many football fan as far as 2008. This is when FIFA struck back. FIFA had built a new game from the ground up and god was it good. Since then PES seems to have struggled to keep pace and FIFA are again dominate. This could all swing again as it only takes a new gaming model to grab players attention. It is good that we have two games keeping each other honest as the games are benefitting. The FIFA's of old got complacent. This battle can only benefit football fans.

Sony vs Microsoft vs Nintendo

Okay so my images are not correct but its the concept that I want! The console battle of today is more high profile and more diverse than ever before. Looking back to when gaming was fairly new only Nintendo have been with us since then. Console manufacturers have come and gone and staying in the market can be as short as one poor console. 

We have three huge companies in the market today but who is the main man?

The answer here is tricky. If you look at the last 5 years the console that shipped the most consoles world wide was the Nintendo Wii with around 100 million sold (Xbox 79 million and PS3 78 and change). So this would appear that nintendo are the strongest in the field right? Well it is not so clear. Yes they sold huge numbers of the Wii but it is widely known that most Wii owners do not buy that many games for the machine. For example for every 1 game an owner would buy for a Wii it is believed they would buy 5-10 for the other consoles. This is maybe an explanation to what has happened since. 

Nintendo released the Wii U last year and at the time it was the only new console on the horizon. After its initial launch went well the console has been outsold month by month by consoles 5 years old. The Wii U sold just 180000 units compared to well over 250000 units of both PS3 and Xbox 360. On top of this, at this years E3 most big games publishers stated they had NO plans to make games for the console.. After 6 months the console has not sold and the people making games seem to have abandoned ship. Is the console rubbish? No but it appears to be aimed at a market that is not really there. Will this be the end of Nintendo? No thankfully. Nintendo are still hugely profitable and have the 3DS handheld to fall back on. Plus they do have plenty of exclusive in house games that will keep them afloat. However I would not be surprised to see the normal 5 year life of a console be cut very short and a new machine come in at the end of 2014 or 2015. At present they do not appear to be in the new battle that is forming.

That battle seems to be between Sony and Microsoft. This was thought to be the battle of the last generation as the Xbox 360 and PS3 went head to head. On this battlefield it was Xbox that took an early lead. This was mainly due to an error from Sony. Due to development issues and the cost of components Sony launched nearly a year later than the Xbox. They had potentially the more powerful machine but it cost nearly £100 more than their rival and was a year late. At this point the Xbox had a huge fan base and the developers of games had a year of experience. As you can see the sales numbers were and are close and so Sony have done well getting back into things, but it did lose its hold of the market from the past. 

Moving into the next generation that are hitting this winter have Microsoft kept the lead? Ironically no. They seem to have hit the same issues that the PS3 did last time round. The console is going to be more expensive, slightly less powerful and more to the point, through some terrible marketing and press releases they seem to have annoyed almost all their fans. After E3 Xbox were in so much trouble they had to change almost all of what they said to match Sony. It was almost embarrassing how badly it all went. 

Has the battle then been won by Sony? It is not clear as Microsoft have tried some huge ploys to win back favour and to a degree it has worked (I will be buying an Xbox One at launch and a PS4 later down the line) but for the majority it is still open. We will not know how this battle has played out until this time next year. will it be as close as this generation? That is the most likely and to be fair the best thing in my opinion. Choice and competition very rarely leads to anything bad. It keeps companies improving and moving things forward. Would we have gone as far as we have with the machines we use having only one on the market? Would we have the wide range of games? 

I hope to see more battles appear in gaming and new things being tried to try and leapfrog the other. That way things will move forward and the consumer will be the ones to benefit.